It was a long, hot, sad, scorching day; nothing to do but listen to the flies buzz over Barbecue Campbell’s blood. Billy Bone sat silently all day, now and then cocking the hammers of his shotgun. Despite the heat he looked cold and white. I believe he knew that day he was lost—we all knew it, for what he had done was terrible even under the harsh code of the West. One man killed for nothing; another shot down under a flag of truce—such marks could not be erased.

No one in the company chided him—it was pointless. He had become what he had long been supposed to be: a cold killer. Four days ago his reputation had only been built on gossip and exaggeration: but Jody Fay lay dead outside the cabin, and that was not gossip.

Now and then I saw Billy turn his eyes to Joe Lovelady, but Joe Lovelady wouldn’t look at him, and Billy didn’t speak. He just sat, wearing a sad expression.

Finally the burning sun completed its long summer’s arch—it set behind the cabin. Through the little doorway, above the stiffened dead man, we watched the glow fade from the chalky ridge to the east, behind which the Texans waited.

The gunmen in the cabin turned their attention to their guns.

“It ain’t gonna get very dark,” Hill Coe observed. “Too much moon. We better try it in the gloaming.”

“How many do you reckon’s up there?” Happy Jack asked, studying the ridge. “I can’t see none. Maybe they left.”

“Plenty’s up there, and they ain’t left,” Hill Coe said. He sounded quite cheerful. The prospect of action, even if it proved fatal, was a tonic to him—something to take his mind off the missed bottle, I suppose.

Joe Lovelady, who had scarcely moved all day, took off his hat and handed it to Billy, who took it but looked puzzled.

“Give me your hat and your coat,” Joe said.

“Why?” Billy asked. “Neither one fits you.”

“They might think I’m you,” Joe said. “I’ll go north—the rest of you go south. If I can get them in a chase it’ll spread ’em, at least.”

“It’s a lot of trouble to go to,” Billy said, but he took off his coat and hat and Joe Lovelady put them on.

“Give Billy all your weapons, Mr. Sippy,” Joe said, turning to me. “Then once we’re gone, surrender. If you’ve no weapons they might spare you.”

“Why, that’s a hanging crowd if I ever met one!” Billy said. “Texans are all rope crazy. Sippy might do better to keep his guns and shoot a few.”

“I wouldn’t want to shoot one,” I said, and gave him my derringers. He stuffed one in each boot, shaking his head at my backwardness as he did it.